THE COSY CORNER CLUB.

Otago Witness, Issue 3196, 16 June 1915, Page 69

THE COSY CORNER CLUB.

PEOPLE AND PERIODS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURA* IN EUROPEAN HISTORY. In saying “European” history, I do not moan Continental history as opposed to English, but the history of Europe, including tho British Isles. Members may take a character sketch of any famous person during that century, or deal with Rome period, such as the French Revolution, or one oi the Jacobite rebellions, or the change in industrial affairs that came about with the introduction of machinery. There is plenty of material to choose from. Tho Cosy Corner Club this week affords a curious illustration of the way tastes differ in this world. In planning an historical meeting, I fixed on the eighteenth century because it has always seemed to mo such an interesting one. Alpha opens her paper with the remark that to most people it is uninteresting, and I am afraid that most of the members must echo that sentiment, judging by tho email number of papers sent in. Perhaps the subject was too wide a one. To select material from a whole century in the history of a wholi Continent docs seem a rather largo order. Tho reason why 1 made it European history instead of merely English history was that wo are inclined to forget how closely the story of our own country is interwoven with that of tho Continental countries, and to look upon it as a thing apart. As a matter of fact, it is impossible to understand the maze of English politics without knowing something of the general European situation, and the ferment in popular feeling that culminated in Franco in tho Revolution was not confined to that country alone, hut was felt through practically all Europe. It might have been better, however, if I had limited the field to some phase of English life—the quaint formality

and precision of the powder-and-patches period has a charm all its own after the rush and bustle of those modern times, or had narrowed down the time to a certain decade or two It would bo a help to rad in arranging future programmes it members would indicate whether they piofer a wide field of choice for some of the meetings, or whether, as the members meeting allows them to give entirely free play to their fancy, they like the other subjects to bo more circumscribed. Before wo go on to consider the papers I must just cjuote a few lines from a letter of Gabriolle’s. “We were both glad to see the reference to Emmeline,” she says, “ and can fully endorse what was said about her influence. She helped us all. Wo wore also sorry to hear of Scarlet Pimpernel, and wish him a speedy return to health, iho long lists of killed and wounded are sad reading indeed; but the whole world is suffering in this terrible war—grief in, almost ovee'y home. We feci proud of our men, yet wo n< er expected anything else from them! New Zealand is a young count)y, but the old spirit is there.” One or tv\o other members have inquired for Scarlet Pimpernel, but I have not seen his name a.gain in the cables, so can give you no news of him. That must be, alter all, a fairly good sign. _ Now for our plunge into the eighteenth century, and, indeed, if we follow Merix it will bo a plunge deeper still, for she takes us back to the preceding one. Dear Elizabeth,-We have had many famous persons before the eighteenth century and many during it. Y4h have asked us to deal with one in the eighteenth, but I wonder if you would mind if _I, first mention one long before that period the Marquis of Argyll. What a fine character ho was! I really think our men who braved all for God'and England in the days gone by were braver and more famous than notables of to-day, for their hardships were greater and much more severe. They did not have the modern conveniences our heroes of to-dav have. Those who have road the life of'Argyll must admire all ho did and dared for the good of those about him. Then how bravely he faced his cruel death, and with what contempt he accepted his cruel tortures to the end! I think Archibald of Argyll was one of our greatest,, notables in far-back European history. But if I am to write about battles fought and won, I would like to go back some „ years now to the dear school days, when our history lesson would come round. I must confess my hero was Horatio Nelson. From those far-away days until now I find no other has appeared to my mind so brave and gentle. Wo have read of the stirring events that took place in Europe when George 111 was still King; of Napoleon Bonaparte, and bow he beat the Austrians in the North of Italy, and afterwards in their own country, and led great armies into Germany and Russia. He then was possessed of a stroncr desire to conquer England ; but Nelson know what Napoleon was about, and when his fleet mit to sea a rain Nelson \yas ready for it. Wo read of how he entered the fight irf (his ship the Victory at a place known as Trafalgar, arid fleyv from the' masthead the flags which read the encouraging message—“ England expects every man to do his duty.” the beautiful example which has been followed from that time to this present day.'- This brings us to the year and, I think, month, of October in 1805, the last and grandest of our honoured general’s victories. He left Britain master of the seas up till the present time; but the victory was won at the cost of his life. Our wounded hero passed away after giving voice to the thought, “Thank God. I have done my fluty.” So let us all th’nk with the nnr-t Browning when he was sailing off the Spanish coast. His mind dwelt on Nelson, who had fought and died there for England’s sake, for Trafalgar was in front of him. The words that rose to his Ups wore:— Here and here did England help me; How can I help England; say Whoso turns as I, this evening. Turn to God to praise and pray. MERIX. P.S.—Please convey to all members my good wishes. What a fine lot of papers came in for our first meeting! Lex wrote —oh, how truly!—of the joy of living. How beautifully he goes through life! And Geraldine gives us all something to study over in her “ happiness.” One sometimes wonders, Merix, if Nelson had any conception of the far-reaching-effect of his signal at Trafalgar. Ho might have hoped that it would bo a message to the England of his time, as well as to his fleet; but he could hardly have realised how his words would live on through the century and help to keep a high ideal before succeeding generations. The" dominant idea of Nelson’s enemy, Napoleon, was “Glory.” battle-cry of our present enemies is “ Might is right!” But wo have 'a higher ideal when we take as our watchword “ Duty.” I was sorry to hoar by your letter that my young unknown friend has been wounded, as well as some of your relatives. It ’S indeed an anxious time for all of us who have friends and loved ones in the fighting line; but the bond of a common trouble helps to-make the burden lighter.

Dear Elizabeth, —When you send us back to the eighteenth century and v,’o turn to the fury of the French Revolution there ceems little enough to lighten these dark days. Yet in Franco there can always oe found the brave and merry heart, as well as the implacably vengeful one, and that indomitable spirit which Frenchmen carry so jauntily atop of their courage through the stress and perils that to-day shake the world, can be found even then—like rifts in the black clouds—if we look for them. No one turns to Carlyle’s history for mirth ; but this characteristic is found in his pages nevertheless. Let us take for example one instance only, and read what he has to say on the siege of Lille, because the name of Lille is to us not one of the past but of the present. We will not ask if these Republicans wore in the right or in the wrong; we are only concerned with their stand against a foe who would take from them all that they held most dear, and the foes are those that we have some knowledge of also—a "repentant Majesty of Prussia, ** who _ turns cold eyes on the fallen French Princes, and the groat House of Austria, who thought that within her lay the power to bring Lillo to the ground. But Lillo City knows no surrender. Wo are told that ‘‘the Lillo trenches opened with ball and ; shells and rod-hot balls; as if not trenches but Vesuvius and the Pit had opened. It was frightful, say all eyewitnesses, but it was ineffectual. The Lillers have risen to such temper . . .

that not a Sans indispensables would surrender for a king’s ransom. Red-hot balls rain, day and night, ‘six thousand,’ or and bombs ‘filled internally with oil of turpentine winch splashes up in flame’— mainly on the dwellings of the Sansculottes and poor; the streets of tiio rich being spared. But the Sansculottes got waterpails, form quenching regulations—‘The ball is in Peter’s house!’ ‘The ball is in John’s!’ They divide their lodging and substance with each other, shout ‘Vivo la Rcpubi.que,’ and faint not in heart. A ball thunders through the main chamber of the Hotel do Ville while the Commune is there assembled. ‘We are in permanence,’ says one coldly, proceeding with his business; and the ball remains permanent, too, sticking in the wall, probably to this day. r ihe Austrian Archduchess will herself sec red artillery fired; in their overhasto to satisfy an Archduchess ‘two mortars explode and kill 30 persons.’ It is in vain; Lille, often burning, is always quenched again; Lillo will not yield. The very boys deftly wrench the matches out of fallen bombs; ‘a man clutches a rolling ball, with Ins hat, which takes fire; when cool, they crown it with a ‘bonnet rouge.’ Memorable also bo that nimble barber, who, when the bomb burst beside, snatched up a shred of_ it, introduced soap and lather into it, crying, ‘My now shaving dish!’ and shaved ‘l4 people’ on the spot. Bravo, thou nimble shaver; worthy to shave old spectral Redcloak, and find treasures! On the eighth day of this desperate siege, the sixth day of October, Austria, finding it fruitless, draws off, with no pleasurable consciousness . . . and Lille, black with ashes and smoulder, but julrlant sky high, flings its gates open. The ‘Plat a barbe’ became fashionable; ‘no patriot of an elegant turn,’ says Mercior several years afterwards, ‘but

shaves himself out of the splinter of a Lille bomb.’ ” . And what . have wo of the invaders? Words that might have been written in the columns of the press to-day—for it is the champagne country, memory of which has been graven on countless hearts for all time—champagne trodden into a quagmire, deep highways spreading out into “fields of a tough red-coloured clay—like Pharaoh through a Red Sea of mud—for hero also lay broken chariots, and riders and foot seemed sinking around.” Austrian, and Prussian they struggle onward with “the.'wild weather pouring on them”; let them go! Pause, though, and give a cheer for the brave Lillors of that day, for they vet live in the once fair land of France. GABRIELLE. Alas, for your heroic city, Gabriello! This time it is in the enemy’s hands, though perhaps after all it is more fortunate in that than one of the towns held by the Allies, subjected as they are to the horrors of a ruthless bombardment. Is it not wonderful how the spirit of the French nation has survived throughout its stormy history? One would have thought that a succession of wars and revolutions _ would have drained it of vitality; but this present testing time has revealed a Franco finer, stronger, and braver than ever before. PROFESSOR TENNANT. Dear Elizabeth.—Professor Tennant, professor of chemistry in the University of Cambridge, was born in Selby, Yorkshire, in 1761. He gave many proofs when young of a particular turn tor chemistry and natural philosophy, not only readme all books of that description which came his way, but also making various little experiments which the perusal of such books suggested. His first experiment was made at nine years of age, when he prepared a quantity of gunpowder for fireworks, according to directions contained in some scientific books to which he had access. In the choice of a profession his attention was naturally directed to the study of medicine, as being most nearly allied to his philosophical pursuits. In October, 1782, ho was admitted a member of Christ’s College, Cambridge. About 1792 bo took chambers in the Temple, which continued from that time to be his established place of residence. During the course of the year 1796 Mr Tennant communicated to the Royal Society his paper on the nature of the diamond, dis-

covering it to bo pure carbon. Sir Isaac Newton had conjectured that this body was inflammable; the merit of completely ascertaining the nature of the substance was, however, reserved for Mr Tennant. Ho succeeded in burning the diamond by heating is with nitre in a gold tube. These researches and his subsequent discovery of two metals—iridium and osmium—made him known throughout Europe. _ His friend, Mr Wishaw, wrote a life of him in which he says: “Of his moral qualities it is scarcely possible to speak too highly. His virtuous disposition appeared on every occasion, and in every form which the tranquil and retired habits of his life would admit of. He was actuated by a high sense of honour and duty, and was remarkable for bis kindness and benevolence, especially towards inferiors and dependents.” His life was brought to a premature end in 1815 by a fall from his horse when staying at Boulogne. LEX. You break new ground, Lex, in your account of Profesosr Tennant. One hears so much of the statesmen and soldiers of the eighteenth century that it is_a pleasant change to hoar of one whose claim to fame lies in his researches in the fields of science. WILLIAM PITT. THE GREAT COMMONER. Dear Elizabeth, —Among all the prominent figures of the eighteenth century in English history and politics none stands out so clearly as does that of William Pitt, the Great Commoner. Ho came into power iust at the moment he was most needed, for England for many years had been unconsciously developing socially, commercially, and industrially, and the advent to power of William Pitt marks what may be

called a great ( political revolution; for until then the great masses of the people were totally unrepresented in Parliament, and commercial England rallied round him'-'syith its wealth and integrity. His aims were unselfish. He was above the corruption that blotted the lives of the public men of his time. His patriotism, his morality, his pride in all that was noble, and his intense earnestness drew the groat middle classes with their energy and prosperity to Ins standard, and, thus aided and abetted, he did more for England than any statesman that preceded him,. Ho stands out a great central figure —a figure of solitary grandeur —at a time when every man in office was supposed to have his price, when there were fc-uds and dissatisfactions at home and abroad, and when England had almost lost belief in herself. But Pitt, with his intense patriotism, and pride of country, and unwavering faith in himself, brought England through a great crisis. Ho believed m England, in hpr power, her glory, her public virtue, until he made England believe in herself. Even to tlio_ partv factions who rose to bring about his fall his cry was: ‘‘Be one people. Forget everything but the public. I set you the example!” YAL.

It must have boon such men as Pit, Val, who kept alive a high ideal of natural service at a time when it seemed to be lost almost altogether, and eo enabled England to hold the high place that she does today among 1 the to read of the political corruption that existed during the latter part of the eighteenth century, and compare it with the standard of public life now. not only in England but throughout the Empire. Imperfect though the latter is, it is somcomncr infinitely removed from the conceptions held a little' more than a century ago by Walpole and his kind. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Dear Elizabeth,—l think that to many people the eighteenth century appears a somewhat uninteresting period, a time when manners were formal and literature prosaio, when, altogether, there was a want of high ideals. For the eighteenth century is associated with the conventional poetry of Pope and his school, and the pictures of life given in the Spectator. Judging by the writings of Pope, Swift, Gray, Addison, Steele, and the groat novelists Foilding and Richardson, one may well say that never was English life so 'dull and at the same time so low

as in the beginning and middle of the 18th century. But it is misleading to take a century as a distinct period. Every ICO years will show successive types of society and schools of thought. In the eighteenth century there appears a distinct change between its last 20 or 30 years and the earlier period. The last quarter of a century saw the rise of conditions and movements that have made the modern world what it is. It saw the French Revolution, the way for which was prepared by the writings of Rousseau, Voltaire, and Diderot. And the Revolution in essence meant the passing of despotism in politics and in thought. ihe three groat movements of the nineteenth century—democracy, rationalism, and the emancipation of woman—all originated in the ferment of the Revolutionary years. In thought the great writers of the closing years of the century belong to us. lake only two great poets, Burns and Wordsworth ; how utterly different is their passionate humanity and their intense sympathy with Nature from the coldness and placid acceptance of things as they were characteristic of the Queen Anne writers. The closing eighteenth century, too, saw the rise of our mrdern industrial conditions, brought about mainly by the great mechanical inventions that made manufactures on a great scale possible. This meant the end of home industries, and the crowding of workers into towns. Increased manufacture and trade wealth and stimulated enterprise of all kinds, leading to the expansion of the British Empire. Almost all the leading political and social questions of to-day date from the latter part of the eighteenth century. Thus, ’if we adhere to the system of regarding a calendar century as an historical period, the eighteenth must bo regarded as one of the most momentous and interesting possible. I should have

liked to deal specially with the rise of the “woman movement,” but to do so would have demanded more time than I can now spare, so I have confined myself to a few general statements. —Yours truly, ALPHA. You are quite right, Alpha, in saying that to consider a century as a distinct period is misleading. It is even more misleading than to count the history of a people by the lives of its rulers. At the same time some such grouping must be made for convenience sake, and it seems to me that the eighteenth century may very well bo regarded as a distinct period, just because it marks the transition stage between an old world and a new. Hence the contrast between its beginning and its end, which you have pointed out. Third meeting, July 14. papers to be in by July 3. WHICH TENDS TO THE BEST DEVELOPMENT OF A NATIONPEACE Oil WAR? You must understand that I do not use the word development in the sense of commercial or territorial gain, but as meaning the growth of that national life which corresponds to the soul of the individual. There is much to be said on both sides of the question. Those who do not wish to write original papers may send in quotations on the subject of either peace eg war.